Retaliate
by prone2dementia
Summary: The last straw had been small, but it had resulted in the gruesome murder of the Dursley family by one Harry James Potter... Oneshot with sequel.


**WARNINGS: violence, torture for the sake of torture, OOC.**

_R E T A L I A T E_

The last straw had been small—insignificant, almost. From an outsider's perspective, the resulting actions would seem ridiculous and shockingly cruel.

Harry was no outsider.

He was an abuse victim and he was _angry_. Typical side effects of neglect, physical and psychological abuse included anxiety and depression. The ten-year-old experienced neither of these because he was _far_ from typical.

He _snapped_.

Harry could not remember the exact words of Petunia Dursley—a complaint about his skills with a knife—but he _could_ remember his outrage. The kitchen had spun out of focus, fogging as the fury that had been culminating for as long as he could remember converged into a single angry thought:

_He would show her _just_ how much skill he had with a knife._

Advancing like an accomplished predator, he cornered his dear Aunt between the stove and the cabinet. The expression on her face morphed from confusion to unease to panic. Harry's senses were overwhelmed by the fear roiling off her. He could feel it penetrating his skin, sinking into his blood. He could smell it in the air, the scent intoxicating his brain. He could taste it on his tongue, and he reveled in the flavor. He could hear it in her whimper, he could see it in the way she cowered, and he _took pleasure in the control he felt_.

The time for his long overdue revenge had come.

"Wh-what are you doing, boy?" Petunia stuttered, trying and failing to conceal her fright.

"You said the carrots weren't chopped up finely enough? Why don't you let me demonstrate how _finely _I can chop things up!" Though Harry's harshly snarled words were phrased like a question, it was painfully obvious to Petunia that her nephew was not asking one.

"Are you—are you threatening me?" she asked in disbelief.

Briefly, the boy paused to consider the consequences. What was the worst that could be done to him? Juvie? Death row? Being whipped, starved, and locked in a cupboard had been amongst his earliest memories. Jail or instantaneous death was cast into a favorable light when compared to those experiences. His existence was meaningless and he felt as if he had no future. The young boy had no friends, so who would care what happened to him? He certainly did not.

He.

Did.

Not.

Care.

That realization marked the point of no return.

"It's not a threat if I actually plan to carry it out."

The thin woman had no doubt about Harry's conviction. She could not stop a violent shudder as she was confronted with the malicious sneer playing on his lips, the demonic glint sparking in his eyes, and the serrated knife he wielded masterfully in his hands.

"You can—you can be sent to jail for this!" she persuaded.

"Hmm," Harry pretended to consider this. "Well, I'd be locked up in a cell. Kind of like the cupboard, don't you think? Except I'd have a window. I'd be forced to do manual labor. Kind of like what you do to me now, isn't it? Except I'd know that there would be a definite stopping point. Oh! But I would be fed for sure! Instead of wondering when my next meal would come..."

He trailed off and grinned wickedly at her—all teeth and no emotion. Petunia gaped, mouth flapping open as she attempted to convey her incredulity.

"The fish look isn't flattering on you, _dear Auntie._" The endearment oozed sarcasm. "Especially because you look much more like a horse."

"You! You dare—I'll—" She was quivering violently.

"You'll what, 'Tunia?" Harry said snidely. "Finish your sentence?"

Her nephew stalked closer, too close for comfort. Her eyes darted wildly as she searched for an escape—searched for a way to distract Harry. The distraction came in the form of Vernon and Dudley Dursley.

Ambling in, the whale of a man asked, "What's going on in here? We heard screaming."

Then he caught sight of Petunia cowering in a corner, with Harry brandishing a knife at her. His double take was comical, but was soon replaced by anger.

"What do you think you're doing, _freak_?"

"Something illegal, for sure," he answered blithely.

On the outside, he appeared unnaturally calm. Inwardly, however, his mind was racing. Vernon was ruining everything with his untimely entrance. Harry would not allow it. _Harry would not allow it! _A sensation surged within him—the same sensation he felt before accomplishing a 'freakish', 'abnormal', 'unnatural' feat. Feats like wishing his hair back to normal after a disastrous cut from Petunia. Feats like willing his bruises to heal after a beating at the hands of Dudley's gang. Feats like surviving after a brutal punishment doled out by Vernon.

Raw power coursed through his veins. His uncle and cousin would be staying put. They. Would. Be. Staying. _Put!_

Vernon had called him a freak, called him abnormal, called him unnatural, so many times before. Freaks could do things like this, couldn't they? They could. He just knew it was so.

"Boy! You dare to disrespect us! We took you in willingly, clothed you, fed you, all out of the generosity of—" His rant was halted when he tried to move forward, but found himself frozen in place.

It was as though someone had glued his feet to the tiles in front of the refrigerator; Dudley was experiencing much the same thing by the kitchen door.

"H-how did you do that boy? What are you planning?" the fat man demanded.

"What am I planning?" Harry casually passed a hand through his mussed hair. "Hmm...first, I think I'm going to slice Aunt Tuney up. Bit by bit. With you watching...Then it'll be _your_ turn."

His uncle thundered, "You can't do that!"

"Oh, can't I?" the boy inquired in a dangerously soft voice. "What are you going to do to stop me? You can't even move from your spot."

A beat of silence later, an idea formed in Vernon's head.

"Help!" he bellowed. "_Help!_"

"Your voice is very annoying, y'know? I'd recommend shutting up before I _make you_."

Vernon did not take the hint. "_HELP__!_"

"I. Said. _SHUT UP!_" Harry roared, nostrils flaring as he heaved in heavy breaths.

His guardian's jaws clamped together with an audible _click_.

"_Much_ better," the child said with approval, before rounding on his aunt.

A pathetic plea escaped Petunia's lips, "Wh-why are you doing this?"

Harry's eyes widened with incredulous amazement before he doubled over laughing. It was the chilling, crazed laugh of a psychopath, and it caused shivers to race down the Dursleys' spines. Petunia stared intently at the knife Harry flourished without regard for anyone's safety (including his own), almost as if she could _will_ the weapon to vanish.

But the effort was futile. She was no _freak_. For the first time in her life, she found herself wishing desperately for the powers bestowed to her deceased sister.

Harry was speaking now, "You honestly _don't_ know? You forget that you caged me like an animal, treated me worse than dirt, and forced me to slave around for you? That just gives me even _more_ reason to do this!"

"You deserved all of that, you _freak_," Petunia said with absolute certainty.

He could not believe it! He could not believe they thought they were in the right!

Sickeningly sweet and ominously low, he growled, "Well if you thought I deserved to be hurt, Aunt Tuney, I definitely think that _you deserve to suffer_."

Harry looked her over critically, deciding that her stooped position made what he was about to do rather difficult. Concentrating with all his might and allowing his eyelids to flutter shut, he brought the flood of power back into his veins. _She would be lying on the kitchen table, and she would be staying there!_

He opened his eyes and took in the sight of Petunia on the table, spread eagle as if she had been bound. He grinned.

Still in front of the refrigerator, Vernon's eyes bugged with repulsion and wrath. Dudley was a pathetic lump, unable to tear his terrified eyes from his mother. Petunia sobbed her horror.

Harry was _very pleased_. The incandescent lighting of the kitchen seemed to flicker in time with the angry flames in his emerald eyes. He approached Petunia leisurely, dragging out her psychological anguish for as long as he could manage.

Her glistening eyes watched as he sauntered. He was only four steps away now.

Three.

Two.

One.

The wail she released was from deep within her, a sound of true terror that welled from the bottom of the human soul.

"Oh God, oh God," she cried. "Stop! Please!"

The devilish child found that he thoroughly enjoyed this game—thoroughly enjoyed toying with her. "Too late now, Auntie." He moved forward to whisper sinisterly into her ear, "It's. Too. Late."

This wasn't supposed to happen to her! She was Petunia Dursley née Evans, of #4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, a normal wife to a normal husband. This couldn't be happening to her!

"No," she argued defiantly. "_This isn't happening_."

Harry chuckled, and it was like the chuckle of a creature that lurked in the shadows, awaiting something young and vibrant to eat. "You can tell yourself that all you want, Aunt Tuney. Do you think that's gonna change matters? _Do you_?"

Petunia shuddered and looked away.

The ten-year-old snickered and removed her slippers, mockingly gentle. "First, I'm gonna start with your tosey-wosies. Would you like that, Auntie?"

The three Dursleys watched in horror as Harry raised his knife, the metal winking coldly as it caught the light.

A pause.

_Woosh! Crack!_

Harry brought the knife down in one fluid arc, and Petunia screamed. Blood blossomed from her wound—crimson and fresh and _horrible_; the knife had only chopped half way through her big toe.

_Pain_.

And the worst was yet to come.

"It seems," Harry said slowly, "that I'll need a bigger knife."

Petunia was the embodiment of fear at its purest—the boy relished it, indulged in it, _devoured_ it. Again, he laughed.

Skipping brightly to a nearby drawer, he pulled out the largest butcher knife that the Dursleys owned. "This'll do, don't you think?"

An incoherent babble of words tumbled from the woman's lips as she spoke the language of unadulterated fear. "No, no, no. Stop...this...I...no!"

Harry stood before her once more, a flood of childhood memories invading him as he feasted upon her vulnerable form.

He had been forced to wash dishes as soon as his arms were strong enough to hold a plate.

_Hack! _Gone was another of her toes.

He had been forced to help set dinner as soon as his eyes could see above the table.

_Hack! _Gone was another of her toes.

He had been forced to clean Dudley's room as soon as he was independent enough to do so.

_Hack!_ Gone was another of her toes.

Laundry.

_Hack!_

Vacuum.

_Hack!_

Yard work.

_Hack!_

Days spent without food or water in a darkened cupboard, wounds festering.

_Hack! Hack! Hack!_

"Stop! Stop, please, I beg you. Stop! No!"

"Shut up! _SHUT UP!_" His hands were suddenly around her throat, throttling her. "The only thing that's gonna put you out of your misery is _death!_"

The pallid skin beneath his fingers was beginning to bruise; she was asphyxiating. He couldn't have that. No, she had to be alive in order to suffer. He backed off.

Petunia was still, unconscious but breathing.

How dare she? She also had to be conscious in order to suffer. She. Was. Going. To. Be. _Conscious!_

The miserable woman jerked to. Opening her eyes, she realized that her nightmare was not over yet. It was just beginning.

"Back, Auntie?" He punctuated his words with an unexpected slice at her left ankle.

"_Ahh!_"

"What did I say about shutting up?" He cut off her right foot.

Petunia bit her lips, muffling the shriek that was about to escape her lips. Sickened, she watched as he removed her skirt, tossing it carelessly to the kitchen floor.

"So how's the weather on the bank of _De Nile_?" He made an incision at her left knee and continued by skinning her spindly calf.

"Or have you come back to join us in England?" He repeated on the right.

"Oh, don't tell me you're gonna black out again! _The fun's just starting!"_ Harry crowed pleasantly.

Never had Petunia experienced so much pain in her life. Her senses were on fire, and her vision was spotted with black from blood loss. She found herself slipping into the blissful land of oblivion, only to be forced back into consciousness by Harry.

It took several chops to sever her thighbones from her calves. The whorls on the wooden table that would soon be her deathbed were stained a dark burgundy, and a continuous stream of blood trickled onto the tiled floor.

"I doubt you feel remorse," Harry was saying. "You're probably just feeling sorry for yourself. That's okay. I never intended this to make you feel repentance—I intended this to be my revenge."

Petunia looked up into those emerald eyes—Lily's eyes. _He's wrong_, was her last thought before she was seized by the clutches of death.

She did feel remorse.

* * *

When her eyelids flickered shut and would not open, Harry pressed an ear to her chest.

No heartbeat.

He giggled.

"She's dead now. What a pity," Harry clucked. "Guess it's _your_ turn now, Uncle V."

Roughly, he shoved his aunt off the table, and willed Vernon to replace her. The man was shaking with disgust and hatred and dread. He looked up at his nephew and saw the skin splattered with blood—Petunia's blood—and the hair matted with sweat. He was repulsed, but he still could not move.

"You never got to eat dinner tonight, huh? I can make your last meal _very_ memorable. Would you like that? Would you?"

Vernon shuddered.

"Yes, you would. Oh, yes, you _would_," Harry said in a horrible parody of a baby-voice as he wrenched off his uncle's shoes.

His big toe was the first to be detached. The youth made his cut slow, torturing Vernon with a feral smile on his face. With alarm-filled eyes, Vernon watched as Harry dragged the severed extremity in a wavering, zigzag formation. Closer and closer it came, until the digit was hovering just in front of the man's face.

"Open up wide now Vernon!" his nephew lilted delightedly.

The overweight man shook his head in a jerky gesture of defiance.

"No?" Harry pouted. "Well then...I guess I'll just have to _MAKE YOU!_"

Revolted, the former drill company manager found his mouth opening on its own accord. The appendage was shoved in and he gagged, gagged, _gagged_.

"Chew slowly now, dear Uncle. We wouldn't want you to choke just yet!"

Tears and saliva dripped from his orifices. Feebly, he whimpered for mercy.

"Swallow now, Vernon. You can't _possibly_ be full yet!"

Vernon refused and Harry was _not_ pleased.

Eyes darkening to the color of coal, the young boy screamed, "_SWALLOW!_"

He did so. The horrible salty flavor trailed its way down his throat, and he felt a ripping inside his neck as his muscles protested the abuse.

"Had enough?"

In his mind, Vernon bawled '_Yes, YES!_', but his voice did not work.

"No? Well, then let me feed you some more!"

The next half hour was the longest in his life. By the end of it, a prayer for death was all he could recite in his mind—he would do _anything_ to end this torment.

But Harry had other plans.

"Let me guess what you're thinking, Uncle Vern. I bet you're thinking that I'm a _freak_." Harry tore off Vernon's shirt.

"Well, you're right. I _am_ a freak and I am _happy_. You don't look too happy, Vern," Harry crooned with mock-concern. "Why don't I make you a _freak _like me, so we can be happy freaks together?"

Making certain that the gashes were deep, Harry carved _F R E A K_ onto his uncle's rotund stomach. Much to Vernon's chagrin, tears were the only way he could express his pain. They gushed out in excess, and seeped into the wood underneath him.

"You still don't look too happy, Vern. Maybe I should make you _abnormal_ too...?" A devious smirk crossed Harry's lips.

On Vernon's chest, _A B N O R M A L_ was engraved.

The man's breathing came out in gasps; his mouth opened in a silent howl.

Harry poked at his uncle's furrowed brows, "Why aren't you happy yet, Uncle Vernon? It's rather surprising that there's no more room to write on your stomach, what with you being so fat and all. I _would_ turn you on your back and make you _unnatural _as well, but then I wouldn't be able to see your face! Oh! I have an idea..."

The boy carved _U N N_ into Vernon's forehead.

"I'm."

_A._

"Gonna."

_T_.

"Write."

_U_.

"On."

_R_.

"Your."

_A_.

"Face!"

_L_.

"There," Harry said triumphantly. "My masterpiece is complete. Do you like it?"

Vernon did not answer—he _could not_ answer.

But that didn't stop Harry from complaining, "No answer, huh? You ungrateful lump. Well, there's nothing I can do for ungrateful lumps like you...Bye bye now, Vern. It's time to join your wifey-dear in hell."

With that, he slashed violently at every inch of skin he could reach and then proceeded to lop Vernon's head off in one fell swoop. The aforementioned piece of anatomy rolled onto the soiled floor, and Dudley followed its path with an indescribable terror in his eyes. Harry turned to the shivering mass of flesh that was his cousin.

"Don't worry, Diddykins. You'll be joining mummy and daddy _very soon_," promised the slighter boy as he eagerly licked his lips.

This time, Harry did not even bother to move Dudley onto the kitchen table. The portly boy would suffer right where he crouched. With satisfaction, Harry took in the pathetic sight of his trembling cousin. This spoilt boy had chased him in Harry Hunting, beat him to a pulp, and tormented him as often as he could.

_No more!_

_Harry would have no more of it!_

He started to pummel Dudley with a strength that he did not know he possessed, stabbing madly with his left hand and punching with his right.

"'S'not so fun when you aren't the one in control, now is it, Dudders?" he asked with ferocious triumph.

Dudley desperately wished to shrink away, but was reduced to cringing every time a blow landed. Pain lanced through him, a sensation he had never really been acquainted with. The viciousness of Harry's hits crescendoed, corresponding with the intensity of his rising emotions.

_All he ever wanted was love_.

A crack was heard as one of Dudley's ribs fractured.

_Acceptance_.

Gashes ran along his plump face.

_Appreciation_.

His jaw shattered.

_But what did Harry get?_

"_Take out the trash, boy!"_

"_Paint the shed!"_

"_Mow the lawn!"_

"_You're an undeserving little twerp!"_

"_Freak! Freak!"_

No more! _No more!_

The fatter boy was now an unmoving, swollen lump. Harry clenched the knife furiously with both hands and drove it straight into Dudley's heart.

No more.

* * *

Later, when the police arrived after receiving a distress call from Mrs. Anna Greenly of #3 Privet Drive (she claimed to have had heard screams), they described the scene as '_straight out of a horror film_'.

And in the midst of all that carnage stood a ten-year-old boy.

He was laughing.

* * *

_E N D_

* * *

Sequel: _Retribution_.

Much thanks to my beta, imadoodlenoodle, who had the idea for force feeding Vernon with his own flesh.


End file.
